Episode 1705: Spit Takes

Summary[]

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about another prescient player prediction (this time involving the Phillies’ Luke Williams), Nick Madrigal’s hamstring injury, another aspect of the baseball scene in A Quiet Place Part II, and a few observations about the foreign-substance scandal, including teams’ culpability, how the perception of sticky stuff use may mirror the perception of the PED era, Pete Alonso’s conspiracy theory about MLB manipulating the baseball, and how the evolution of sticky stuff mirrors the evolution of the spitball. Then they answer listener emails about the underperforming Yankees offense, outs on the bases, and WAR for base coaches, whether MLB needs new names for positions, the “father-son” rule in Australian Rules Football, how vaccination status might affect player trade value, seven-inning-game gamesmanship, and John Gant and regression.

Topics[]

Underperforming Yankees' offense and outs on base
Episode 1703 follow-up: Outfield positioning and names for new positions
If MLB had a "father-son" rule like Australian Rules Football
Upcoming trade deadline, team vaccination rates, and competitive advantages of being vaccinated
League oversight on rain delays
John Gant's stat line and possible regression

Banter[]

Episode 1704 follow-up: Player predictions and Luke Williams' home run
Nick Madrigal's hamstring injury
Episode 1704 follow-up: Ben notes that in A Quiet Place Part II Mookie Betts is still on the Red Sox in 2020
Prevalence of baseball in movies
Use of foreign substances in the minor leagues and how foreign substance use will impact reflections on this era of baseball
Pete Alonso's comments on changes to the ball and salary suppression
Episode 1701 follow-up: Why it took so long to ban the spitball

Email Questions[]

Nick: In Ken Rosenthal's recent article on the state of the Yankees, he noted that the team leads the majors in outs on the bases. My question is: would this "outs on the bases" metric be a reasonable way to evaluate third base coaches? Could it be the foundation of a WAR-like metric for third base coaches (does such a thing already exist)? If so, what does that leaderboard look like? Phil Nevin seems to be well-regarded, but he may not fare so well on such a leaderboard. Should the Yankees be scouting the minor leagues for the third base coach with the best "outs on the bases" number and retire Phil Nevin to special assistant?
Matthew: I was listening to Episode 1703 and was interested in your conversation about outfield positioning. I think one of the reasons we do not necessarily notice changes in outfield positioning is because the "position" a player is fielding does not change. Someone is playing left field no matter where they are in left. Compare that with cricket, where the position a person is playing depends to a greater degree on where they are standing. Below is a chart of cricket positions I am including mostly so you can laugh at the names of the positions. But notice that there are 35 fielding positions for 11 players. No player is a "silly mid off" in the way Rhys Hoskins is a "first baseman." Rather, a person will be positioned at silly mid off for a few pitches before moving somewhere else based on a number of factors. I am not sure why this developed but I can say that shifting defensive positioning is much more of an integral part of the game in cricket so my guess is naming positions after places a player might stand made more sense than the baseball way -- naming positions after the general area a particular player always stands. Now that we are in the age of the shift, I think we should adopt the cricket style of position naming. In other words, we should stop calling someone a center fielder and say they are positioned deep straight away or short left center etc. If we had more names for outfield positions, maybe we would notice more when they moved. This would have the added benefit of changing the way we score games to more accurately reflect the play. At the moment, knowing something was a 6-3 put out does not tell you much about where the ball went. What do you think and if you agree, what silly names should we adopt to differentiate positions? Matthew: I'd like to draw your attention to the world of Australian Rules Football. Specifically to a unique rule they have for player acquisition called the "father-son" rule. The gist is that if someone plays 100 games at the top level for a club, then that team can call "dibs" on drafting any of that person's children. To do so, the team sacrifices their second round draft pick. If there are multiple "sons" eligible that year, they give up their third round pick and so on. Because teams also have professional women's sides, there is an equivalent "father-daughter" rule. Once it's relevant, it will likely expand to "mother-son/daughter" too. If an eligible amateur's parent met the minimum for multiple teams, the player can pick which team calls dibs on them. And if the player doesn't want to be picked by their parent's team, they can decline to have "dibs" called on them. Do you think baseball would be better off if they established a similar rule? It could allow for young, top prospects who want to follow in a parent's footsteps the chance to do so. But by allowing players to opt out of that commitment, it wouldn't force it. So if Cavan Biggio really wanted to be an Astro, he could be. This is complicated by the absence of an international draft. Like, if Vladito had really wanted to be an Angel (or National?), he probably could've been. So maybe this would only apply for domestic amateurs.
Colby: How will vaccination affect trade values this season? If you're right on the threshold for 85 percent vaccinated, is there a value in moving an unvaccinated bench bat for a slightly less talented but vaccinated bench bat, assuming salaries are comparable? Why will the A's be the team to figure out how to work this to their advantage?
Colin: in the past week cleveland has postponed four games—two seven-inning doubleheaders—under questionable circumstances. on saturday they allegedly couldn’t get the tarp on the field after playing through rain and wind, and today it’s not great in cleveland but it’s certainly...playable. there were many confused/ angry looking fans downtown in light drizzle today. is this just a coincidence or does the state of cleveland’s rotation (bieber and civale and pray for rain) creating a moral hazard with regard to the relative ease of setting up seven inning doubleheaders? put another way should there be league oversight on postponing games in 2021/ is there an opportunity for gaming 7 inning games the team is (potentially) taking advantage of?
Steven (Los Angeles, CA): Hi, as of writing this, John Gant has pitched 50.2 innings to the tune of a 1.60 ERA and a 2.13 RA9. He just finished wrapping up 6 scoreless against the Dodgers last night. He's also got a WHIP of 1.52, FIP of 3.98, xFIP of 5.05 and xERA of 5.11 while being the Cardinals most valuable Starter by bWAR. I understand that we're still firmly in small sample size territory, but I'm wondering if there's any other explanation for his wonky statline other than "luck". The Cards have a great defense working behind him, but he's got the best ERA in their rotation and it isn't particularly close. Is there something else potentially going on with the way he approaches batters with men on base vs bases empty? Or something about his particular pitching style that lines up with the Cards' defense? This is probably just small sample size wonkiness but his results are just *so* incongruent with his peripherals it still feels notable.

Notes[]

The Yankees have made 29 outs on the bases. The next highest team has 22.
In Episode 999 Ben and Sam discussed the prospect of giving contract offers to the newborn children of MLB stars.